Book Detail

La gioia piccola di essere quasi salvi

(The little happiness of being almost saved)

by Chiara Valerio

After an absence of some months Giulia comes back to her seaside town to look after her maternal grandmother, Agata, who is suffering from a degenerative disease. Giulia’s childhood friend Marco lives in a flat opposite her window with Leni, a prostitute who receives her clients there. Marco has loved Giulia since the day he saw her mother plunge from the balcony; since the moment he had retrieved his friend’s shoe which, in little Giulia’s eyes, her mum had reached out to grasp. Amid the hallucinations of Agata, who is persecuted by her daughter’s blood, the seductions of Leni whom Giulia and Marco cannot resist, plus an unmentionable secret, these four interwoven lives seek to leave the fetters of a known and painful past for a future that still has surprises in store. With her third novel La gioia piccola d’esser quasi salvi, Chiara Valerio has achieved a lucid and sensual prose which places her among the most interesting writers of the latest generation.
Chiara Valerio was born in Scauri in 1978. She is on the editorial staff of Nuovi Argomenti and Nazione Indiana and her publications include A complicare le cose (2003), Fermati un minuto a salutare (2006) and Ognuno sta solo (2007).